Saturday, December 26, 2009

Preparing your small business for your vacation

Want to skip town so you can go home and visit with some family? Maybe you’re feeling a little burned out and need to get away from it all? Whatever the case, burgeoning entrepreneurs are just as entitled to vacation times as their counterparts who receive biweekly paycheques. However, small business owners have to make some more complex preparations ahead of time.

I’m speaking from my perspective as a freelance writer, though the same concepts should apply to other entrepreneurial professionals as well. This also goes with the assumption that you are largely a one-person operation, but adjustments can be made for slightly bigger companies too.

First, it is important to plan ahead if you are going to take more than a couple of days off. Keep project deadlines in mind so that you leave little, if anything, “on the table” while you are away. You don’t want to have that looming deadline in the back of your head as you try to relax with an umbrella drink on the beach. It’s fine to line up more work for when you return, but try to minimize any work that straddles on both sides of your holiday time.

Second, ensure that proper preparations are in place for the receipt of any letters or parcels that you may be expecting in the mail. See to it that there is someone there to receive them on your behalf. Better still, make use of a mail service, like the one offered by the Network Hub, to handle your shipping and receiving needs in your absence.

Third, you may want to inform your existing clients of your intentions. It would leave a bad impression if a client assumed that you were in the office, sending you an urgent email or giving you a call, only to feel that he or she is being ignored. A simple and straightforward “out of office” auto-reply message may be in order.

Coming back from your vacation, you can feel re-energized and more motivated than ever to get back on the job. You deserve some relaxation time.